His Smile
by Saf Dawnheart
Summary: A simple question sets things in motion for Shaymin's true feelings to be revealed, and uncovers a side of her best friend she never knew existed. — Victini/Shaymin.


Hey all! It's been a while since I've written for Pokemon, but inspiration hit me the other day (actually, about two weeks ago) and I whipped this little thing up. I use the word "little" as loosely as possible, of course, because this thing has a LOT of time and words spent on only two scenes. I'm very reluctantly labeling it a oneshot for now, but I'll probably end up dividing it into two chapters eventually.

Anyway, enjoy the fic, crack pairing-esque though it may be!

_**Disclaimer-**_ I do not own Pokemon.

* * *

><p>"Look, all I'm saying is that if you threw a bug at Rayquaza's face, he would flip out. End of story."<p>

Shaymin laughed, rolling over from her stomach and stirring the blades of grass atop the hill. Once on her back, she arched her body back to get an upside-down glimpse of Mew hovering just above. "But it's Rayquaza," she giggled. "Are we talking about the same Pokemon here?"

"You mean bad-tempered, socially awkward, grunts more than he talks?" Mew quipped, her form descending close to Shaymin's face. As her toes touched the ground, her tail flipped playfully into the hedgehog's face, making her hiss in mock displeasure and wiggle to bat it away.

"Yes, that one," she said, amusement dying down just a tad. "You're saying just throwing a bug in his face would freak him out? Because when you said 'flip out,' I had the distinct impression that he would get _angry_ more than scared. You need to specify."

Mew tucked her abused tail tip close to her side with a tiny pout. "Scared, silly. That's the joke." She flopped down next to Shaymin. "But he'd probably just get Kyurem to take the bug off."

Shaymin blinked; that had come from out of nowhere. "Why Kyurem?"

The next moment, she jolted as a gusty sigh blasted her eardrum. "Because he likes her?" Mew huffed and shook her head, ears becoming flattened against the ground due to the movement and giving her the illusion of drastic aggravation. "Honestly, Shaymin, oblivious much?"

"Well, pardon me for not paying attention to the weird crap Rayquaza does," the hedgehog grumbled. Mew giggled, only to fall silent, a strange, yet welcome action.

The two friends sat quietly for a few minutes, during which Shaymin watched the scant few clouds pass high above and squinted against the light of the afternoon sun. Mew had picked a perfect day to visit, she reflected. Yesterday storms and icy cold rain had wracked the sky, forcing Shaymin to hide, seething, in her den; once the evidence of Zapdos' power had subsided, it had left little more than freezing puddles and dripping, shivering flowers in its wake.

As Shaymin had made her rounds typical of the calm after the storm, weaving her way through the field and returning her flowers to their former homeostasis, she had gotten the distinct impression that the next day would be beautiful. Sure enough, the cloudless sky and gentle, warm breeze proved her assumption correct.

"So," Mew cut in abruptly, startling the hell out of Shaymin, "my turn to ask a question."

"Geez, Mew, don't _do_ that!" the hedgehog gasped, one paw flying over her heart. Mew lifted herself up into the air, one eye gradually narrowing in the imitation of a human raising an eyebrow. "I was in the middle of a good reverie, you know!"

Mew snorted, but her affectionate smile belied any scorn in the sound. "A good reverie about flowers or something?"

"No!" Shaymin protested, then realized a fair bit of her reminiscing had involved purifying the meadow. "Maybe," she muttered grudgingly.

"Oh, Shaymin," the cat grinned, hauling the hedgehog up and hugging her close to her side. "Only you."

"Yeah, only me," she gasped out, the iron grip all but squeezing the air out of her lungs. She pressed her paws against the pink chest holding her hostage, struggling feebly to be freed. "I can't – answer anything you want to ask me until you – would you let go!"

"Huh? Oh, right. Sorry." Mew released her green-and-white burden, allowing said burden to slide to the ground. Shaymin's nose twitched as a blade of grass brushed against her face, and not for the first time in her millennia of life, she cursed her size, or lack thereof.

"Thank you," the hedgehog muttered, turning her glare away. "Now ask me something."

"Oh, all right," Mew said. Shaymin risked a glance back and saw her friend folding her arms. "Hmm."

Seeing Mew actually contemplating this, she uttered a small scoff, sidling up to stand beside the floating shape. "You're actually thinking about this, aren't you? Weird." Shrugging her shoulders, she added dryly, "Not as weird as Rayquaza liking Kyurem, but still…"

Almost on cue, Mew shot up, arms hitting her sides again so hard that Shaymin jumped back slightly, dark eyes wide, at the loud slap they induced. "I've got a question!" she chirped, bouncing up and down in midair.

Shaymin relaxed, mild annoyance replacing her surprise. _All right, Captain Obvious._

This irritation flew right out of her mind – and took her sense of coherency with it – when Mew leaned close, eager grin firmly fixed onto her countenance, and spoke her question.

"Do you –" here she poked Shaymin's forehead with a paw – "like anybody?"

The words were innocuous enough, but Shaymin had spent enough time on this planet to understand exactly what _like_ meant in this context. And of course, hearing that four-letter word, one legendary in particular floated into her mind. Of pale blue eyes whose luster rivaled Mew's. Of overconfident remarks and almost aggravatingly optimistic words that buoyed the council out of even the darkest abysses brought on by grave news at meetings. Of an elbow casually resting on top of her head and making her into an impromptu armrest, and barks of laughter as she pushed him away, flustered.

Lifting her head to the endless sky, Shaymin just sighed.

Another invisible red flag must have gone up in that action, because Mew squealed and sprang forward, gripping one of Shaymin's tiny paws in both of hers. "Oh, my Arceus, you do, don't you?" she gasped, tail waving about agitatedly. "Who is it? Do I know him?"

Shaymin leveled her gaze at the ground, focused on the way the grass rasped against her body instead of the heat that thinking about the answer to Mew's question called to her cheeks and back.

"You mean like romantically, right?" she asked, in a last-ditch attempt to stall.

Mew rolled her eyes, tail spasms now having confined themselves to just the tip. "Yes, I mean romantically. And you need to answer my question!" She swooped forward and leaned close. "Is he someone I know?"

"I – maybe," the hedgehog stuttered out, the brightness of her friend's blue stare searing into the inside of her eyelids when she blinked. "I don't see why you –"

_Why you're pushing this,_ was what she meant to say, but at that moment the very object of her dismay – the very reason why she balked at giving Mew a straight, honest answer – chose to reveal himself from nearby.

"Good afternoon, best friend!"

Shaymin's head whipped toward the origin of that sound so quickly her neck twinged in protest. For some reason, even though his appearance would have rescued her from the iron trap of Mew's curiosity, Shaymin found herself praying that she was hearing things, if only for the sake of her dignity.

Of course, her eyes found the same bright blue eyes and orange-and-cream-colored fur that had just flitted through her mind moments ago, crossing over into reality to appear before her.

Mew turned her head as well, but when she saw who exactly had called them – had already known, if the slight hint of dread on her features was any indication – that dread came to full fruition in the form of exasperation. A rare expression for the cat's mien to hold, but one that emerged all too often around this particular friend. "You're talking to me, right? Please tell me you were talking to me, Victini."

"I was talking to both of you, actually," Victini answered loftily. He seemed to materialize between them, and Shaymin squeaked in surprise as he flung his arms around both females' shoulders. The length of his arms, combined with Shaymin's lack of shoulders and Mew's still hovering a ways above the ground, made things a bit awkward, but he managed to pull Mew down a little nonetheless. "You're both my best friends."

"Nice save," Mew muttered, but the annoyance had sluiced away and allowed a grin to shine through.

"Anyway," the fox went on, releasing both of them, "I was actually talking to Shaymin here." Ignoring Mew's yelp of indignation, he turned to the grass-type, who inclined her head toward him to indicate she was listening. "Gorgeous day, right?"

Shaymin shook off the amusement – along with the clichéd, yet intrinsic, little shiver that lanced along her spine at his eyes on her – and smiled back. "Yeah," she agreed, then decided that was a pathetic reply and elaborated. "It stormed pretty much all day yesterday. You were in Unova most of yesterday, right?"

"Try _all_ of yesterday," he said, the words eking out amongst a groan. He dragged one palm over the top of his head, where his ears formed a V, and flopped it back down to his side again, apparently too irritated to control the movement. "The island almost flooded."

"Again?" Mew remarked, floating closer to hear the conversation better.

"Yeah, again. I guess some of the storm here in Sinnoh carried over to Unova." Victini shook his head, smirking. "Remind me to punish Zapdos for it later."

Shaymin chuckled, the sound emerging at a pitch that made it sound a bit too much like a giggle. Mew must have noticed this, for she looked sharply at her friend, opening her mouth to speak; with a thrill of anxiety, knowing Mew was just realizing the unspoken answer to her query, Shaymin hastily cut her friend off.

"S-so," she began, stubbornly refusing to look into the other pair of blue eyes, "why did you come out here today, Victini?"

"Oh yeah; that." The fox's face lit up, and he straightened to his impressive one-foot height. "Shaymin," he began in an extravagant manner, "there is a meteor shower later tonight just outside Driftveil City. As this is the less popular place where people and Pokemon will be watching, I thought it the perfect spot for legendaries to observe." Shaymin blinked as he fell into a deep bow, nearly tumbling over his own feet in the action. Nearby, Mew snickered. "Would you, Shaymin, do me the honor of accompanying me to watch this meteor shower this evening?"

"Wow," Mew said, holding back a guffaw.

Her disdain, feigned though it was, earned a glare from the legendary in question, before he turned his own gaze back to Shaymin – and was it just her, or did his face look _hopeful?_

Pushing away the delight that would have begun to flood her at the notion, the hedgehog just nodded. "I, uh… sure," she managed, suddenly having to consciously try and put a damper on the heat beginning to rise to her face.

While she was occupying herself with calming her countenance, Victini's was splitting open with a grin that bloomed forth not unlike the flowers of the field she adored so much. "Sweet!" he sang, springing up in excitement. "I'll just meet you here, then, and we can go at sundown?"

It was the most logical decision, and yet Shaymin balked. The exact reason why eluded her, but she had a feeling it had to do with whether or not Mew, who was looking on with no small amount of amusement nearby, still remained here even when the sun had gone to slumber beneath the horizon. Mew had stayed here in the Flower Paradise for the duration of the sun's cycle before; it wasn't inconceivable that she would do so now.

Especially after seeing the very raw, very emotional, very yes-this-is-who-I-like reactions from her friend.

And having Mew here for that long, as well as seeing her and Victini off, would only enhance Shaymin's anxiety, the feeling that was already beginning to pulse through her at having agreed to this. _It's not so weird,_ she argued with herself, _you two have gone places alone together before._

_ But that was before I realized I liked him._

Instead of dwelling on her nervousness, she focused on giving her input to his suggestion. "Actually," she demurred, "could I meet you there? I, um… have some stuff I have to take care of."

Up till now, Mew had been looking on with no small amount of smugness coating her expression; at hearing this, though, she straightened from where amusement had hunched her shoulders, a frown curling across her lips. "No, you don't. You said you were free all day."

Shaymin shot her a withering glare, one that had _shut up before I throw a seed flare at you _scrawled in bright red ink all over it, and Mew obeyed, though not without a narrowed eye. "Anyway," the hedgehog continued, turning to Victini, who now had a look of anticipatory curiosity, "yeah, I'll just meet you there."

"Oh, ye of little foresight," Victini chuckled, eliciting a brow-furrow of Shaymin's own. "Do you even know where this place is?"

Shaymin opened her mouth to speak, only to close it again. Briefly, she chided herself for only thinking so far ahead as to preserve her own comfort; Unova lay stretched out as little more than a dark, misshapen mass in her thoughts, nowhere near as familiar as Sinnoh.

"All right," Victini grinned, wiping imaginary tears of mirth at his friend's expense aside. "Let me break it down for you." He placed one paw on her back, and she stiffened briefly as it made soft contact with the down-like flowers there. She willed herself not to take her eyes off his face, no matter how much impulse screamed at her to, and simply took in the animated glimmer about him as he explained. "Once you hit the west coast of Unova, there'll be a little river coming off the coast. Follow that, and at one point, there'll be a divider. Land. Thing." He waved his free paw in dismissal of his inability to properly classify the break in the river.

Shaymin blinked slowly. "Like a boulevard to a road?"

"Yes! That." Victini raised his paw into his standard V of victory pose. She could almost hear the shift in Mew's sockets as her eyes rolled. "So anyway, right at that point, you'll see a field of tall grass, then a coastline to another part of the river. That'll be where I'm waiting."

"All right," the grass-type mused, already tracing the route inside her head.

Before she could do much more than imagine flying over Unova's western coast, bleeding rays of the dying sun warming her back, Mew cut in, "So how are you getting there?"

She jumped; in the heat of the conversation, Mew's presence had gone all but forgotten. Clearly, Victini shared some of that surprise as well, for his paw fell back down to his side and his eyes widened. "Well?" Mew pressed, expectantly. Her paws had gone to her cheeks, squeezing her head in their grasp, and her feet kicked languidly at the air as she floated on her belly. Shaymin narrowed her eyes; her friend was relishing this a little too much.

"I'll just go find the Gracidea flower to change me into Sky Forme and fly there," she replied, warily.

Mew backpedaled in midair, effectively destroying her impression of a teenage girl, and she blinked rapidly a few times. "For real?" she asked, quirking an imaginary brow. "I thought you said you couldn't find it."

"A Gracie… what?" Victini cocked his head to the side, a pout of confusion on his face. It was a testament to how deeply invested Shaymin had become in the last five minutes alone that she found his bemusement adorable as hell.

Mew waved one paw dismissively as she turned to him. "Basically, Shaymin here picks it out of the ground, huffs some of the glittery crap it spits out –"

"I do not _huff_ anything!" Shaymin argued, though to her immense annoyance, the cat's coarse explanation fit the process of the Gracidea transforming her.

Ignoring her friend, Mew plowed onward. "And then she gets actual legs and wings and stuff. When she snorts the flowery stuff again, it turns her back." Shaymin growled indignantly, but of course she went unnoticed again.

Victini had regarded this explanation with a kind of growing understanding, albeit tempered with amusement at his friends' arguing. At Mew's mentioning of Shaymin obtaining wings, though, his eyes flew wide with wonder.

"Uh," Shaymin got out, before he fell to his stomach and grinned up at her. The view of him was partially obscured by blades of grass that chose to drift in front of his face with every breath of wind, but she could see the awe glinting in his stare and in the way his teeth showed in his smile. _Oh, hello, heart palpitations. How are you today?_

"That's pretty damn cool that you get wings!" he chirped. "Like, legit wings! I mean, yeah, okay, I have them, too, but they suck and the only reason I even get airborne most of the time is 'cause of psychic power." A flicker of creamy fur drew Shaymin's gaze to his fluttering the angel-like wings that flared out from his spine.

She abruptly realized the same blush she had had to restrain earlier had returned, and immediately set upon trying to mute it again, because Mew's smug expression – which trod a step just shy of _this will be blackmail forever_ – had returned. "Well, anyway, the point is I'll be flying to meet you outside Driftveil. Are we good?" She hated the peremptory tone that her nervousness had strung to the last part, but with the sky of his eyes destroying her skills at cohesive thinking it was all she could manage.

Victini sprang up, lips still quirked upward. "Oh, of course." He lifted both paws, which had set themselves into a V sign again, and bowed again, this time a tiny bit more gracefully. More specifically: not to the near-tipping point. "Milady, I shall take my leave of you here. But at sundown, we shall meet at the promised place."

Shaymin leaned back slightly, uncertain as to how to react, until he lifted his head a ways and the sunlight glanced off his toothy smirk. Revealed the near-challenge in it, misconstrued though it may have been.

Before she could stop herself, she was lowering her own head and fluttering her lashes in what she hoped to Arceus seemed demure, enacting her form of a curtsy as best she could with little height and a stumpy-legged, quadruped form. "Well then, good sir," she drawled, "I bid thee farewell." A giggle almost wiped out the suaveness she had worked into her words; his enthusiasm was infectious, after all.

"Oh, for the love of Arceus," Mew muttered, though exasperation couldn't hide her lingering grin.

Victini lifted his head the rest of the way, straightening his body in the process, and cast them a V with one paw. "Goodbye, best friends," he called over his shoulder, and lifted off into the air.

Shaymin had just a moment to reflect on his abrupt farewell – indeed, to reflect on just what the hell she had gotten herself into – before the sound of a feminine voice clearing its throat made her cringe and turn. Mew's smirk had become so downright diabolical that the hedgehog couldn't hold back a wince.

"What?" she demanded.

"Oh, nothing," Mew hummed.

* * *

><p>Shaymin was beginning to regret having insisted on finding this place herself.<p>

Actually, no, _beginning to regret_ seemed grossly inaccurate. In reality, said regret had first made itself known when she had raised the Gracidea flower to her face and the fact that she barely remembered how to fly hit her. From the hour or so she had spent clumsily traipsing about the Flower Paradise on her longer legs and getting the tips of grass up her nose from her increase in height – and Mew being a terrible, terrible friend and laughing the entire time – the ruefulness at her brash decision had only magnified, almost parasitic in its spread. By the time Mew had left, telling her playfully not to have too much fun with her not-so-secret-anymore crush, shudders of fear had begun to spasm throughout the hedgehog-turned-winged-fox's stomach.

And now, having left the cocoon of familiarity that was Sinnoh far behind her, she could feel the tendrils of terror and anxiety work their way into and flow through her body all over again. "I shouldn't have agreed to this," she murmured aloud, even though the rushing wind swallowed the breath given to produce that rueful comment and forced it back west from whence she had come. Yet in spite of the wind's eradicating her words from audibility, it could not stem the flood of panic that burst forth into tangibility. _I should've said I had stuff to do tonight and couldn't go. I should've –_

But then the west coast of Unova was passing beneath her, and her form was perfunctorily following the river that Victini had pointed out, and then a spit of land appeared as a break in the tributary and an orange shape was visible beneath the green of the grass.

For a brief, traitorous moment, she almost considered not descending. Just flying past where he sat, maybe toward that mountain-like cave in the distance. Mistralton Cave, wasn't it called? Hiding in there for a few hours didn't sound like such a terrible idea.

She didn't get any more time to contemplate the merits of bothering Cobalion now, though, because the orange dot below – the dot that, she belatedly realized, she had kept an unnaturally large amount of attention focusing on this whole time – shifted. And even though she hovered so high above, even though both beings' field of vision failed to encompass the other's details in the slightest, a shiver wracked her body and made her flight path shaky at the azure eyes on her.

With a resigned feeling, she angled herself to make a steep descent to where Victini waited.

As she descended and his details became clearer, she made out the movement of one paw as it stroked over his ears, along with the unfamiliarly _anxious_ slant in his back. She blinked, at the same time feeling her own nervousness increase and augment her heartbeat's already-dangerous speed.

_It's not a date,_ Shaymin had insisted at Mew's relentless teasing. _We've hung out together before._

_Yeah, but the fact that you feel the need to argue about it says that some part of you thinks it's a date,_ Mew had commented, darting about in the air and grinning at her friend's red-faced and spluttering response.

Because really, she kind of had a point.

With a last, resolve-gathering shiver, she touched down as gracefully as she could behind Victini, thankfully managing to avoid the rather humiliating fate of hitting the ground face-first.

She was just congratulating herself on having not totally embarrassed herself – whether he turned around just in time to see or not, her pride could only take so much – when Victini turned his head and spotted her. For a few moments, he eyed her with strange confusion in his eyes, his nose wrinkling in concentration. Shaymin stared at him, wondering why he hadn't already jumped up and greeted her with his typical affability, before recalling he hadn't even known about her Sky Forme before now. It only made sense that he didn't recognize her.

Just as the words to confirm her identity were tunneling up from within her, though, his face lit up in recognition. "Shaymin! About time you got here," he remarked, a mock-admonishing tone marking his timbre. "I've been waiting for a while."

In spite of his obviously joking, Shaymin still winced as she trotted up to sit beside him. "Sorry, I –" A thought occurred to her then, and she appraised him with more than slight suspicion. "How did you figure out it was me?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Victini grinned, but upon seeing his companion sigh and roll her eyes, some of his affability faded into honesty. "All right, I gotta admit I didn't recognize you at first. But it's not like I couldn't know it was my friend standing in front of me!" As he spoke, an unexpectedly bitter veil swept into his words. "As if I couldn't know who you were."

The anomaly for him made Shaymin blink out of astonishment and regard him with a newfound curiosity. This was _Victini,_ after all – the legendary who always had a grin on his face no matter which direction the situation took; the Pokemon whose trademark involved success and reveling in that success.

She supposed it wasn't surprising, that this side to him existed in the first place. What did shock her – the notion that took hold of her mind and heart and held them both firmly in place – was just how well he had kept it hidden.

_I'm probably overreacting,_ she told herself, _it was only one sentence, after all. _Indeed, Victini's blithe mask was already slipping back into place, and he just smiled all the wider. "Anyway, I'm just glad you showed up tonight! The meteor shower starts a little after sundown," he added, "so I figured we could just chill until then."

Tucking her doubts back to a dark corner of her mind, Shaymin nodded, folding her spindly legs beneath her in an attempt to get comfortable. Predictably enough, this effort didn't work, drawing out a low growl from her as she shifted about. "I never use this form, ever," she complained. "You never realize how bad bigger Pokemon have it until you become one for a little while." The last part morphed into a grunt when she accidentally put her entire weight on one leg.

Victini watched her struggle with more than a few snickers escaping his lips, and she tossed him a glare. "I wouldn't know," he said. "I'm not one of these 'bigger Pokemon.'" He punctuated the last part by lifting his paws and creating air quotes with his fingers.

In spite of her resenting his amusement at her expense, Shaymin had to stifle a giggle at the way he moved his fingers in the air. Only a slight difference from the victory gesture he normally displayed. "Can you imagine what it would be like to be one of the really big ones?" she wondered aloud. "Always stumbling around, trying not to fall over yourself."

And then she had to repress a wince, because without even meaning to, an edge of spiteful amusement had crept into her voice. She braced herself for a frown and reproving comment from Victini, but surprisingly, only laughter echoed in the rapidly-chilling early evening air. "Like I said, I wouldn't know," he drawled, settling back on the heels of his paws. "But yeah, that's definitely an issue. I have enough trouble moving around as it is. Well, you already know that." His shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug.

Inwardly thanking Arceus for Victini's lack of reproach, Shaymin chuckled, a bit of the anxiety that had plagued her on the way here permeating the sound. "Heh. Yeah."

Comfortable silence fell upon the two of them then, as both legendaries gazed up at the darkening sky. With the disappearance of the sun beneath the horizon, nighttime was beginning to stretch dark fingers across the sky and taint it a star-marred black. Remembering the reason her friend had called her out here in the first place, Shaymin searched the sky for streaks of white that would signify meteors falling; seeing nothing, she sat back on her haunches and fought back a sigh. _Of course they're not going to show up immediately, _she chided herself, _there's a reason he called you here this early. Because he wants to hang out with you._

_He wants to be with you for a little bit._

The thought injected both a fresh swell of happiness and a newfound tremble into her heart; as much as she balked at admitting it, she knew the source of the tremble. The bitterness that had darkened Victini's voice earlier wound its way about her mind, effectively destroying her ability to remember anything else about the night, if only because it was so odd.

As she sat there, gazing out at the clear sky, another oddity for him occurred to her: Victini hadn't spoken a word since his affirmation of his clumsiness. Normally he would control a conversation as deftly as Shaymin purified her flowers - not quite with the same energy and fervor as Mew, but pretty close - and allow Shaymin only a tiny bit of room to nod or show him she had indeed absorbed his words. Now, though, he merely lifted his face up, eyes closed and a tiny smile on his face that Shaymin could see despite her sidelong glance. He looked so tranquil, so calm, so completely and utterly _free _that she couldn't help but envy him and revel in it all at once, both for the same reason: he was her friend.

And yet he had chosen her to come out here, alone, with him tonight.

For the first time since arriving in Unova, Shaymin felt a grin of her own beginning to tug her lips upward; felt the fear that had dogged her and all but driven her past here beginning to ebb. And for the first time, she allowed herself to think, _whether this is a date_ - gulp - _or not, at least I get to be with him and see this with him._

It should have felt mildly pathetic, that she found herself clinging to that paltry assurance, but somehow she couldn't bring herself to care as much as she ought to.

Suddenly filled with the urge to speak, she opened her mouth, only to realize she had nothing worthwhile to say. Other than, of course, the tiny little issue that involved him and the complexity of the knots his smiling at her formed out of her insides, but just thinking about that caused the currently-sleeping beast of terror still lurking in her thoughts to twitch.

And so, stupidly, inanely, she said the first thing she could remember off the top of her head. "Speaking of bigger legendaries, Mew told me something weird about Rayquaza earlier today."

Victini's eyes slid open, and he glanced over at her. Although the strength of the peacefulness that had just left his countenance suggested he should feel somewhat annoyed at her interruption, not a trace of aggravation was there: just genuine curiosity. "Oh?"

"Yeah, she did." Shaymin nodded, only to laugh and gently push him away as he leaned in with wide eyes and an expectant, almost goofy grin. "Stop!"

"Well, can I help it if I'm curious?" Victini whined playfully, falling flat on his back and gazing up at her when she craned her neck to continue their eye contact. "Look at what you've done!" he gasped, feigning desperation as he wriggled about on the ground. "I'm like a Squirtle! I can't get up now. Thanks a lot."

Shaymin rolled her eyes, but her mock-exasperated comment emerged around a giggle. "You're fine. Now can I tell you what Mew said or not?"

Victini's faux trepidation waned into a pout, and he sat up abruptly. "Oh, fine. Some best friend _you_ are." Shaymin scoffed, and he just smirked. "All right. So what secret about everybody's favorite little green dragon have you got for me?"

Ignoring the sputtering of her heart at his eager expression, she shifted a little on the ground to get a bit more comfortable. "All right. Gather round, and I shall reveal this to you," she declared with a dramatic flourish of her own.

Victini rolled his eyes, teasingly shoving her shoulder, at that: an action he could never do while she was in her normal form. Suddenly, the form Shaymin had abhorred so much before didn't seem so terrible after all.

"Rayquaza likes Kyurem," she announced.

Before the words had freed themselves from her, he had been eyeing her with a mix of amusement and interest, one paw fisting against the underside of his jaw and the corresponding elbow resting against his knee. Once she had told her secret, though, he uncoiled from this position at once, jaw practically hitting the ground. "No way," he gaped. "Rayquaza… and… you can't be… Seriously?"

"That's basically how I reacted when Mew told me," Shaymin said, eyes widening. At the same time, triumph surged through her, directed toward Mew and the mental image of her nigh-condescending grin when Shaymin's jaw had first dropped. _See, Mew? I'm not the only oblivious one here._

Victini lowered his wings, which had lifted out of deep shock, and his entire body relaxed. "You do know you should take anything Mew says with a grain of salt, right?" he asked, quirking an imaginary eyebrow. When Shaymin appraised him with no small hint of bemusement on her features, he raised his paws, palm up, in a placating gesture. "All I'm saying is that she's her. She likes to stir up trouble." Leaning back and resting his arms behind his head, he smiled. "It's one of the reasons why I became friends with her."

_That_ gave Shaymin pause. The conversation had just taken an entirely different, entirely alien turn, and even though she knew the irrationality and idiocy of jealousy, the feeling seeped hotly into her abdomen nonetheless. "And me?" she couldn't help asking.

He glanced over, so innocently curious that she didn't know whether to hug him or smack him. "What about you?"

Shaymin shook her head, brow knitting together in an annoyed frown. "Why are you friends with me?" she elaborated, narrowing her eyes.

He blinked then – actually blinked – and raised himself up onto his elbows to tilt his head at her. "Because you're…" He hesitated, then. Wrinkled his nose, straightened a bit more, folded his arms in thought. At some point between that final _you_ and his arms brushing against his chest, the breath had jammed in Shaymin's throat, caught somewhere between hope and fear, around which air fought for purchase.

She was listening a little too closely for a simple friend to.

At last, he looked up at her and smiled. And just like that, her breath fell back a few rungs in the proverbial ladder of her throat. "I guess because you're what balances me out. Me and Mew both. B-but this isn't really about her," he added hastily when this earned him a not-so-subtle eye roll. "It…" Pause, close azure eyes that matched the hue of the skies over the Flower Paradise earlier today, shake head with a frustrated growl. "I don't know how to describe it. But… you're cool, you know? And strong. Even if no one else really thinks so, I do. Because… you play the mediator, and you've got no problem with it."

Shaymin could only stare, eyes wide, legs wooden as they kept her anchored to the ground. _The mediator? _That term for everything she did around Mew and Victini had never once crossed her mind, not once in their years spent as friends and cavorting about the world.

It made sense, though, didn't it? To describe her near-motherly urges to step in and pry Victini and Mew's verbal hooks off each other?

Some measure of recognition must have lit her face, because Victini grinned wider and scooted a little closer. Only a scant moment served as her warning before he wrapped one arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him. "That's why we're friends," he said, voice unnaturally subdued. Through the thrumming of her heart, which vibrated throughout her body and made her tremble against him, she picked out the softness of his ears rubbing against her cheek.

A gentle breeze lifted the air then, and it took her an embarrassingly long couple of moments to realize the odd tint of citrus drifting on that breeze was coming from him. Citrus and warmth and contentment, which she hadn't even known could have a smell before now. She indulged her pounding heart by wondering just what scent he was detecting from her before he pulled back and gazed back out at the sky. The air that grazed her side where he had pressed against her, however briefly, bit at her much more coldly than before, and she had to fight back a shiver.

Yet that shiver was born of internal reasons as much as external. When he had finished, reaffirming the topic of conversation, that bitterness had edged his voice again. And in spite of her wanting to preserve his comfort, the words came spilling forth anyway.

"Victini, are you feeling all right? You just seem… a bit different, tonight."

He stiffened, then seemed to decide holding things back from her at this point wouldn't make any sense and deflating visibly with a sigh. "Different how?" he muttered, clearly trying to stall. Irritation flitted across Shaymin's consciousness, and she wondered if this was how Mew had felt when the hedgehog had hedged her question about her feelings.

"You know how," she retorted, then remembered that he probably didn't and explaining anyway. "You just sounded so… angry, earlier. And it scared me a bit, to be quite honest." Without even meaning to, harshness sharpened her words, though for an entirely different reason from Victini's: that of desperation, and worry, and the need to know he wasn't keeping that much of a secret side hidden from her.

Another sigh issued out of him, the breath becoming part of the cool night air. For the first time since breaking his serene silence, she noticed that darkness had taken over the sky completely; in spite of that, though, she could see the expression on Victini's face all too clearly. The gaze he turned to her contained anxiety and fear and ruefulness all in one, so many emotions she would never have thought him capable of feeling.

Let alone show to her.

Impulsively, she reached forward with one paw and gripped his own tightly. All at once, his eyes flew wide and darted down to their contact. "Just tell me what's wrong," she begged in a near whisper. "I don't know why you feel like you need to hide that other side of you, when it's a part of who you are. But I… I want you to gain control of it. I want to help you gain control of it. I want to see you smile again, because I like it when you…"

Maybe that was the point where her common sense kicked in and screamed at her to just stop talking right then and there; and so she did, even though the damage was already done.

"I…" Victini hesitated, then tightened the grip she had on his paw as best he could with her lack of fingers to twine with his. "I just think it's better to hide that part of me, sometimes. The part that no one wants to see. I mean, c'mon, I'm the legendary of _victory,_ not the legendary of sulking around."

Hearing the self-deprecating tone begin to creep back into his voice, Shaymin shook her head frantically, wanting to stave off that part of him as best she could. "It's still who you are," she insisted, and couldn't help adding, "If I'm really your best friend, then why do you want to hide that kind of thing from me?" To her shame, her voice underwent a not-so-subtle little break as she tacked on that desperate question: the one that haunted her mind at the sight of him succumbing to sorrow like he almost had.

Confusion spread throughout her entire body with talons not unlike those that had enveloped the daytime sky when he didn't respond at first: just glanced down, briefly, at their adjoined paws – she marveled at the fact that she hadn't withdrawn her own with a hasty, muttered apology yet, but somehow she got the feeling that she could hardly do it now – before meeting her gaze again. Calmly, without a trace of anger or belligerence or false bluster.

Stripped of those things, the things that had marked him thus far, the expression in his eyes looked decidedly raw, and she felt torn between breathlessness and concern at the sight.

"Because," he began – _hello, heart palpitations; it would seem you've returned_, but annoyance at that only plagued her for an instant, because he was sounding all subdued again – "I…"

Something flashed out of the corner of Shaymin's eye then, but she mentally flicked it aside, knowing whatever he had to say took precedence over whatever it was.

But then it appeared again, and again, and Victini tore his gaze away from hers to look at it, only for his eyes to widen considerably. "The meteor shower!"

Shaymin blinked – once, twice, a third time – and then she remembered why they had come out here in the first place. Nonplussed, she turned her head toward the sky.

Any trace of anathema toward the phenomenon for interrupting this moment flew out of her mind immediately in favor of amazement. The lights cascading down, marring the immense dark canvas with streaks of white, made her squint against their brightness at first, but as she grew used to the rapid fluctuations in lighting, she found her expression of awe matching Victini's. The warm hold of his paw on hers had gone slack, she noticed, and pressed further on it to deepen their contact once again.

As she sat there, watching the celestial fireworks in the sky with her mouth slowly falling open in wonder, something soft draping over her back made her jolt sharply and turn, bewildered, to him. However, she relaxed once she figured out what had happened. Victini shifted his wing to draw her in closer, and his long ears obscured her vision briefly as he moved to rest his head where neck met shoulder.

Staring down at him with no small amount of heat rising to her cheeks, Shaymin felt her grudging, newfound respect for her Sky Forme deepen into genuine liking. She couldn't do this – couldn't huddle this close, couldn't inhale sharply as his wing brushed against the crimson, leaf-like appendage on her back – in her normal form, after all.

Maybe that was when it hit her, why he had gone to the trouble of taking her out here tonight; why he had revealed this much of himself to her; why he had returned her embrace so easily. She stifled a chuckle, at the same time feeling her chest ache with relief. _Mew's right. I _am_ oblivious._

She pushed any thought of her friend out of her mind as Victini raised his head to look at her and graced her with the same smile she adored so much. "Worth it?" he asked, quietly. Hopefully.

In response, Shaymin settled serenely into his embrace, returning it by leaning her head back against his. "Worth it," she whispered back.

* * *

><p>Heh. Aww.<p>

Review, please?


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